The Most Perfect Shape
by Lord Diago
Summary: If you would know a man's character, observe his actions when he thinks himself unobserved.
1. Chapter 1

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

-Oscar Wilde

The group of city guards were chatting excitedly amongst themselves. Highly unusual, and decidedly unprofessional. Captain Reuss however waited a moment before reimposing order. The men's excitement was completely understandable. After all the time spent chasing pickpockets or being sent on raids by the slightly unhinged Lex, to be given a proper mission must have seemed to the men a godsend and welcome respite.

'Alright boys get it together,' Reuss finally broke in. The guards before him immediately organized themselves, all ten of them in a stiff line facing their Captain. 'As you all know we got some Conjurors in there who've been giving people walking round the island some trouble.' He said, gesturing towards the rickety wooden portal that was the cave entrance. His pale silver armour glittered as he moved in it, and the gold and bronze bands flashed.

'They'll have some Daedra in there, no doubt, and standard procedure for all of them. You _never_ go after Xivilai or Storm Atronachs without archers, and don't bother with arrows when you see a Daedroth, just get your sword out! Alright, we'll charge down there in a column of two. Archers get ready!'

The men organised themselves accordingly, the two in the front especially positively emanating adrenaline. 'Charge!' Captain Reuss roared. The door was kicked down, and the column rushed into the clammy tunnel before them.

****

A six foot, pale gold bipedal alligator bore down on the Legionnaire, who raised his shield against the blow only to be knocked down on his back. Normally a fall meant death, but a comrade with a silver claymore intervened, plunging his weapon into the base of the monster's tail. Thus immobolized, the Daedroth turned and let loose a bout of fire from its mouth, knocking the second Legionnaire down. The first however found his longsword in time to stab the Daedra in the heart, and its wilting roar preceded its fall to the ground.

Across the large chamber an archer was riddling an inky blue Xivilai armed with an ebony hammer and fighting another Legionnaire.

Meanwhile a woman in azure robe and hood was standing in the shadows, muttering an incantation and building up an ominous bluish light between her hands.

Icthyus was back to back with his Captain. Each was facing a Dremora warrior in crimson armor and wielding a mace and shield. The mages who had conjured them were hanging back and watching, their pool of magicka recovering. Reuss was sweating. His men were good fighters, but this was going to be a fight. The two Dremora charged, and the two men parried.

Reuss followed up with a downward strike on the Daedra, who raised his shield to block it. Icthyus followed up with a stab to the Daedra's stomach, or at least where a stomach _would _have been had the opponent been human. He wasn't so sure about Daedra. The armor on his opponent was very strong, but he did get his sword a quarter of the way, doing enough damage to stagger the Dremora, who clutched his wound. Icthyus took advantage of this and wide a single fluid movement slit the Dremora's throat. There was only time enough for a single spray of dark red blood to escape before the Daedra in its entirety evanesced into thick red smoke. His superior similarly found an opportunity to ram his silver longsword into his opponent's throat.

The two Conjurors glanced at each other. One turned to flee while the other cast a frost spell. An orb of dim blue light shot past Reuss' head, the sound of ice crackling filling his ear as it passed. Without thought he charged the responsible mage, who launched a fireball the Legionnaire blocked with his shield. Up close Ruess wordlessly sunk his blade deep into the comparatively soft body of the Conjuror, who shrieked as he fell.

****

The man in blue robes turned to let off a wide frost spell. Icthyus braced himself in the split second before it hit him and brought him to his knees. His hand was too numb to keep hold of the sword, and it clattered away. Smiling, the mage sauntered up to the fallen Imperial. A weak fireball to the chest knocked Icthyus onto his back, and he lay groaning on the rocky slope. He waited until the mage was right on top of him, bending down to take a look. Icthyus' left hand slithered towards his belt and found a small steel dagger.

'Now you die, guard _dog_. Did you think we'd let you lot-' he ceased to speak when the dagger flashed across his exposed neck. Blood quickly stained the sky coloured robes and fell onto the laid out Imperial. Icthyus turned his head, trying to avoid getting much on his face. Instead it dripped down the side of his neck and into his armor, until the Conjuror fell backwards and expired.

Icthyus sighed deeply before getting up, no mean feat when you were in full heavy armor.

Seeing that the tunnel he was in lead to a small and empty-looking chamber, he decided to explore it. That way he had a semi-acceptable reason to take a break from the madness in the upper chambers. Anything was better than a return to the melee upstairs. And so abandoning his comrades to whatever the Conjuros had in store next, Icthyus descended further.


	2. Chapter 2

The passage was long and sinuous, with only a single line of small wooden oil lamps attached to the walls every eight feet to hold back the darkness. The dampness of the cave increased very quickly as Icthyus descended, and the gradient of the passage put a considerable amount of rock between the other guards and him. The battle was soon inaudible.

Icthyus kept his sword out so that he could deal more quickly with any enemies that had stayed out of the fight, which was rather unlikely, he thought. Still, he could tell his superior that he was scouting ahead, or something.

Walking briskly he found that the passage terminated in a large chamber which had a pool of water roughly in the centre. Hence the dampness of the lower passage. Pale yellow stalactites, looking like ribbed icicles, dripped water into the pool.

Had Icthyus been the greenest of mages he would have immediately noticed the magical force concentrated in this small pool, a power mellowed by time and isolation. Magicka was not spread evenly out, and there would always be those interesting places with less or in this case, more.

However, Icthyus had been born and bred in the stone streets of the City, hard in more than one sense of the word, not some mansion in the cities of the West Weald, and so did not. What he did notice however were the grubby sleeping rolls, crates and long wooden table with its assortment of hard breads and chesses on clay plates. Picking up the softest of both he could find and hold in one hand, he approached the edge of the water.

Biting off a bit of the bun and then a bit of cheese (whose subtlety of flavour went unappreciated) he came up to the cold, smooth rim of the little lake. Icthyus knew that this sort of water could be special and good for health-mineralized or something.

The oil lamps on the dining table flickered, and right at his feet something sparkled.

Icthyus' sharp eyes caught the glittering, and he bent down to take a closer look.

Just inside the edge of the still pool of water Icthyus discovered a small metal band. A plain ring of silver. It had been lying in the water, undisturbed and still.

Icthyus put his sword down on the ground and reached into the pool to retrieve the ring. The ripples from his motion in the water travelled across the pool like a silent sigh, and the ring sparkled in Icthyus' hand.

Icthyus marvelled at his good luck. He could pawn it at that famous general store in the Market District for a pretty good sum, probably. He'd be drinking ale all weekend! He took a closer look at the ring. If it was better craftsmanship it would sell for more, and he had to know where he stood.

The ring looked rather boring. The fashion with silver rings was engravings of vines and leaves. You could even get copper rings with that nowadays. The ring must be older then. Maybe it was antique? It looked very good for an old ring. Extremely well-polished and smooth-looking. It was also an absolutely perfect circle, which Icthyus thought might mean it was made by a skilled craftsman.

In a fit of fancy Icthyus took off his right gauntlet and slipped the ring on. As it slid down his finger it created a tingling on his skin. He felt coldness run over his body, radiating from his finger and enveloping him like a piece of clothing being slipped on hand first. This was terrifying enough in itself. However what elicited the shocked shout from the Imperial guard was the fact that _he could no longer see his hand._

An indescribable iciness gripped Icthyus' heart. All thought had faded from his mind. After some moments he became dimly aware that he was not dead. He tried to move his vanished hand. The armour around his arm moved dutifully. He felt wind against where his hand should be.

His heart rate began returning to normal. He raised his other hand. He brought both hands together and felt the coldness of the metal gauntlet on his left hand. Suspecting what had happened he felt for his ring finger on his right hand, found the band of silver and slowly slipped it off.

The cool veil slid off him with the ring, and his hand reappeared, whole and unharmed. The surge of relief was unbearable, and Icthyus found himself laughing in an awful relief. His mind was slow to process the discovery; that he, Icthyus, had in fact found a magical item which could quickly render him completely invisible. In flesh, at least.

In a minute however he regained his mental faculties. He would start to return to the upper chambers. If he met the other guards on the way he would tell them how he scouted ahead and came to the lower chamber. If he didn't, he'd try to blend in with them and hope nobody noticed he had disappeared in the first place.

As it happened his good luck was still in. The fight was in its final throes. Only three Conjurors remained holed up in a side room. Clannfear and Flame Atronachs kept emerging to do battle, but Captain Reuss took this to be a good sign; the Daedra were weak, suggesting the Conjurors were running low on magicka.

The guards were tightly focused on the entrance to the small room, and did not notice Icthyus slip in from behind and rejoin the group at its back. Finally the last Daedra was felled and Captain Reuss ordered the final charge. The Imperial guards under his command swept inside and slaughtered the mages.

The southern Watch tower was in uproar. The last barrel of beer had given out, and the men who had so valiantly faced down the Conjuror plague upon the fair City isle found themselves contending with dry mugs. A sorry state of affairs indeed.

Icthyus had excused himself from the bacchanal downstairs an hour ago, and had been experimenting with the ring.

He had discovered that while not able to cloak his Legionnaire armour it was able to render leather armour invisible, and worked on most of his clothes, leading Icthyus to conclude that the ring worked on organic materials, and that he did not need to be naked to be rendered invisible, but could wear linen, cotton and the like.

This was a very pleasing discovery, and it was not long after this that Icthyus decided to make use of it.

Author's Note

I know what you're thinking: I copied Lord of the Rings!

I haven't! Honestly! I was actually inspired by a Greek philosopher's tale of ring that enabled the wearer to become invisible. Maybe it was LotR that copied him?


	3. Chapter 3

The cool veil slipped over him like thin cloth or a breeze. The flannel shirt and sack cloth pants and sandals vanished with his body. The ring tingled pleasantly on his finger, a kind of humming power. Feeling very excited Icthyus called up the ladder to make sure the upper rooms were empty. When nobody replied, he took hold of a rung and pulled himself up.

As he opened the trapdoor his heart pumped harder. It was ridiculous, of course. He was only stealing a couple bottles of ale from Captain Reuss' cabinet. They would hardly be missed. As he reached the next chamber and climbed up to the fourth and final one he began to smile to himself. There was no danger of him being caught.

He opened the trapdoor and lifted himself upwards. The Captain's room was empty. Of course; he was downstairs with his men guzzling beer. Leisurely Icthyus sauntered up to the wine cabinet and opened it to reveal row upon row of mead, ale and cheap red wine. Whistling, he took one bottle of each and clutched them to his body.

He carefully made his way down to the third floor and was surprised by the opening of the trapdoor leading to the second. He stuffed the bottles under the blanket of the nearest bed and held his breath. The man coming up was none other than the good Captain Reuss. Probably continuing the party in his room with his mead and ale, a bacchanal for one. As Reuss slipped past him Icthyus actually sucked in his stomach out of instinct, although his clothes were of course baggy enough to render this action pointless.

The good Captain ascended the ladder to his room without incident, and Icthyus picked up his bottles and returned to the floor below.

Icthyus was drunk in a more metaphorical sense as well as being in the physical state of intoxication. His daring theft had been a milestone. The world of opportunities opened to him through the silver band was dizzying in its breadth, and Icthyus knew he would sleep sweetly that night in the watchtower.

His thoughts were interrupted by the descent of the Captain, who invited him down to the celebration one floor below, where he planned to share some excellent mead he had bought some years ago with the members of the raiding party. Icthyus smiled and accepted.

As he toasted with the other men he also smiled with the rest of them. His smile however was not one of so much happiness as smug self-satisfaction. The good Captain had not poured out his best mead. The bottle Icthyus had stolen had been more subtle and mellow.

The weekend of the same week Icthyus spent roaming the streets of the City. More specifically, he roamed the Elven Gardens and Talos Plaza Districts. The reasons being that they were full of wealthy folk who would not notice the loss of a purse or wallet until they had to fork out some septims for lunch, and they were not so crowded that he would have to constantly watch himself and avoid being brushed against, as would have happened in the Market District.

Those two nights he had declined the tavern trip invitations by his colleagues and instead dined (both nights) in an elegant cafe, where he drank pale chardonnay alongside his salmon fillet and salad on the first night and supped on a leg of lamb with mint sauce on the second.

The following Morndas he took in the reports of pick-pocketing with sympathetic nods and clicks of the tongue, while inside he had to fight the laughter from bursting out of him. It was like trying to hold back water in his mouth, lest he spit it out upon the unfortunate ladies and gentleman waving their silk fans and hickory canes about.

The ring he kept in his breast pocket. It was a comfortable weight over his heart whenever he walked about the tower of the City with it. He never took it with him when he was on duty, for some thieves were especially daring and tried their luck with guards, and the thought of the slightest possibility of losing the ring terrified Icthyus. He even checked his pocket every time for a hole or even a weakness in the seams before slipping his ring inside. It would be his well-protected secret.

Come the weekend he would lighten the pockets of the wealthy, always in different parts of the two districts and with irregularities in the time of day. As a guard he knew all the methods one could use to guard oneself against pickpockets, and thought before attempting a robbery. Avoiding the alert-looking and using the skills he had learnt from years of hunting down and arresting such rabble.

Rabble. Such a strange word to use, Icthyus thought. As if the power of invisibility had ennobled him in some way. A ridiculous thought. Although, he did feel superior. He did feel more powerful than the people around him, the wealthy and successful, totally defenceless against him, the stalker of the City. These thoughts were what went through Icthyus' mind, scarcely a week and a half after finding the ring.

Icthyus bought cotton bed sheets and new down pillows for his modest house in the Market District. Akatosh knows a guard's pay was relatively lousy considering the importance of their work. It was the wizards and doctors and merchants with the nice houses and addresses. He had a fully furnished apartment, it was true, but once instalments, taxes and such were paid little money was left for holidays. Besides the cheap ones available to the City guard once a year. He would have gotten more benefits had he been married, especially if he had a child, but as he was still young without any intention of settling down proper and raising children, those shining days seemed a while ahead yet.

As he lay in his newly improved bed he enjoyed the modest luxury of the softness. He had several thousand septims from his two weekends of 'work', and realised that he didn't want to spend the entirety of it on opulent dinners. In fact after that first couple of nights he had spent it improving the house, getting it cleaned professionally by a group he saw advertising its services, having cushions added to all the wooden chairs around the tables, stocking the small kitchen with fresh fruits and soft cheeses, even some new clothes for himself.

As it dwindled over the course of the week he would once again slip on the ring and spend the weekend mornings and afternoons enriching himself. He heard guards muttering about the increase in pick pocketing in the Talos and Elven Gardens districts, and spoke darkly of an increasingly obsessive guard Captain called Lex.

Their own Captain Reuss was not too concerned with the supposed problem. As far as he was concerned pick pocketing was the second oldest economic activity. What the first one was he declined to say. For the most part then Icthyus' unit was unaffected.

At the end of another week he hit upon another idea. Could he simply steal things from shops while invisible? Maybe he could creep in behind another customer and pocket things while the shopkeeper was looking the other way. Who would notice if a small item vanished from a pile or display? With this in mind then he began another experiment.

Thoronir was reputed to be one of the richest upstart general store owners this side of the District. His shop was fairly crowded, and Icthyus had to slide around to avoid touching anyone. Eventually he came to a display of watches in a dark corner of the shop floor. He found a beautiful silver one, with gold tracing. He discretely slipped it, chain and all, into his right pocket and moved on.

A gold ring with an emerald solitaire joined the watch. A pearl necklace found itself in Icthyus' left pocket. A small pocket book of fine paper with a vellum cover was slipped into his shirt, and a platinum cigar case joined the pearl necklace. Feeling heavy with expensive goods Icthyus slipped out the store. The items in his pocket jingled faintly, but in the noise of the store nobody noticed a thing.


End file.
